Clifford Freitas
Tuesday, 4:12 p.m. -- Chuck Rizzo Jr., the founder of Rizzo Environmental Services resigned Tuesday amid a scandal involving the company, the Detroit News reports.
“We are outraged by the allegations that have been reported and have zero tolerance for employee misconduct or unprofessional behavior,” said Patrick Dovigi, president and CEO of GFL Environmental, Inc., who will oversee Rizzo’s operations in the interim, according to the News.
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Report From Earlier This Afternoon
The second, and likely not the last, politician in Macomb County has been charged in the FBI probe into government contracts with trash hauling company Rizzo Environmental Service of Sterling Heights.
Tresa Baldas of the Detroit Free Press reports that Macomb Township Trustee Clifford Freitas, 43, was charged Tuesday with bribery for pocketing $7,500 in cash from Rizzo to help it win a contract in July 2015. Freitas worked for the company at the time. His Linkedin page shows he worked for Rizzo from June 2013 until this month, the Freep reports.
The Freep reports:
According to Macomb County meeting minutes, Freitas read a prepared statement to the board on July 8, 2015, "stating in part that he would be abstaining from the deliberations and voting on the single waste hauler contract due to the fact he is employed by Rizzo Management, a company that submitted a bid on the waste hauler contract."
According to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court today, Freitas gave insider bidding tips to Rizzo to help them win the deal – which they did.
Earlier this month, Clinton Township Trustee Dean Reynolds, a candidate for township supervisor, was charged with taking bribes from Rizzo in exchange for his vote on municipal contracts.
In all, he his charged with accepting between $50,000 to $70,000 in cash from the company’s representative. Additionally, the feds allege that Reynolds accepted $17,000 in cash payments from an undercover agent of the FBI, with the payments being video recorded.
